Rubik’s Cube’s world stars for world championships

With hands, feet and even blind: 1,100 of the best players of the five continents of Rubik’s Cube will compete in Paris from 13 to 16 July, at the world championships of the most famous puzzle.

After Bangkok in 2011, Las Vegas in 2013 and São Paulo in 2015, it is the first time that the French capital is chosen to host the ninth edition of this international competition organized at the Docks of Paris. The general public will be able to attend the competition but only high level players from all continents will participate.

A diabolical game that has sold more than 450 million copies since 1977, Rubik’s Cube, adopted by new generations, was invented in Budapest by Hungarian sculptor and architect Ernő Rubik.

His invention was simply intended to interest his students in geometry. By 2015, some 500,000 cubes have been marketed in France alone, according to the latest figures provided by the organizers.

The principle of the puzzle is to reconstitute as quickly as possible the colored faces of the cube each composed of 9 small cubes able to rotate and exchange between them on several axes.

A real three-dimensional puzzle requiring great projection capabilities in space, the original cube has 27 pieces including 1 heart, 6 centers, 8 corners and 12 edges. There are 43.252.003.274.489.856.000 (43 quintillions) ways to mix a Rubik’s Cube. A single quintillion corresponds to a billion trillion.

Ⓒ AFP – NELSON ALMEIDA – | The queen competition remains the resolution with two hands but resolutions with the feet are also possible, as here in São Paulo July 17, 2015

The Paris World Championship will consist of 18 events, for 4 days. The queen competition remains the two-handed resolution of the classic 3x3x3 cube. Resolutions with the feet, with one hand, with the blind are also in the program.

Among the stars of the discipline engaged in Paris, 21-year-old Australian Feliks Zemdegs holds 8 world records in 6 disciplines including the world record of solving a 3x3x3 cube in 4 seconds 73.

His main rivals are the Dutch Mats Valk and the American Max Park, only 15 years old.